Brenda Worthington is an Associate Deputy Director for the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) Programs Office. In this role, she leads a team of Division Chiefs that oversees high profile programs such as the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program; the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program; the Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulants, and other Substance Abuse Program; and the Patrick Leahy Bulletproof Vest Partnership Program. The team also oversees initiatives relating to body-worn cameras, sexual assault kit testing, officer safety and wellness, border law enforcement, regional information sharing, intellectual property enforcement, public safety partnerships, community-based crime reduction, and reducing death and injury of individuals with dementia or developmental disabilities.
Prior to being an Associate Deputy Director, Ms. Worthington was the BJA Division Chief for the Northeast Region in the BJA Programs Office. In this role, she supervised a team of grant managers and oversaw initiatives stemming from the Second Chance Act and the Prison Rape Elimination Act as well as the Justice Information Sharing initiative.
Prior to joining BJA, Ms. Worthington worked at the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) in a variety of roles within the Office of Investigative and Forensic Sciences and the Operational Technologies Division. There she served as the Forensic Science Scientific Working Groups’ program manager and the contracting officer’s representative for the Convicted Offender DNA Backlog Reduction Outsourcing Program, developed under the President’s DNA Initiative.
Ms. Worthington also worked on the Attorney General’s Body Armor Safety Initiative which resulted in the revision of NIJ’s Ballistic Resistant Body Armor Standard and Compliance Testing Program. In addition, she managed the effort with the National Institute of Standards and Technology to develop a National Voluntary Laboratory Accreditation Program for body armor.
Ms. Worthington holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Communication from the University of Miami and a Master of Science degree in Justice, Law, and Society from The American University.